Monthly Highlights from the Russian Arctic, October 2024
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.
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Aleksandr Nikitin: I did not ask for asylum in Canada
Publish date: October 21, 1997
Written by: Igor Kudrik
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Aleksandr Nikitin: I did not ask for asylum in Canada
--I did not apply for asylum in Canada, says Aleksandr Nikitin in an interview with Bellona Web today. Nikitin thus rejects rumours to the contrary, spread by Interfax yesterday.
On Monday this week, Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin stated that spy-charged Bellona co-worker Aleksandr Nikitin will be allowed to emmigrate to Canada after law enforcement bodies complete the investigation of the case. The statement came on a press conference held together with the Chernomyrdin’s Canadian collegue Jean Chretien.
–I consider myself an innocent person and want all the charges against me to be dropped, said Aleksandr Nikitin to Bellona Web. –Before this happens, I do not plan to go anywhere, he added.
Aleksandr Nikitin thus rejects the rumours spread by Interfax. The Russian news agency yesterday claimed that Nikitin had applied for asylum in Canada.
This is the second time the Nikitin case has been broached by the Canadian Prime-Minister during negotiations with high-ranking Russian officials. On the first occasion, the Canadian Prime Minister expressed his concern over the Nikitin process to Boris Jeltsin at the G-7 meeting related to nuclear safety issues in Moscow, April 1996.
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Bellona Nuclear Digest. October 2024
A survey of events in the field of nuclear and radiation safety relating to Russia and Ukraine.
Putin leaves Kazakhstan without deal to build nuclear plant
A visit last week by Vladimir Putin and a Kremlin entourage to Astana, Kazakhstan sought in part to put Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, on good footing with local officials.
Moscow snips last ties to cooperative nuclear cleanup agreement with West
Russia is formally withdrawing from a landmark environmental agreement that channeled billions in international funding to secure the Soviet nuclear legacy, leaving undone some of the most radioactively dangerous projects and burning one more bridge of potential cooperation with the West.